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All prompts beneath the photos are only suggestions. You are free to use the photo to be inspired to write any way you desire. ~ There is no deadline on posting, you may offer your writing to any prompt anytime.~Write and you are a writer.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Once...

Photo by Brett Traffordvisit his site 365 to 42 for more beautiful photographs.~Suggested Prompt...~

Once upon a time...

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Rapunzel

What little girlHasn’t heardThe fairytaleOf Rapunzel

With golden hairAnd skin so fairAnd a prince to rescue her

But what girl hasHair that shines like goldOr that perfect rosy complexion

And what girl hasA prince to save herTo rescue her from the tower

The tower where she waitsDay after dayNight after night

She gazes downAt the forest belowAnd the sweet spring flowers

The songbirds visit herAnd from themShe learns to sing

She gazes out at the worldAnd waits for her princeTo come for her

The tower’s silenceIs oppressiveThick, suffocating

And so she singsTo frighten awayThe silence

Days passNights passAnd still he does not come

She has grown tiredOf waiting for something,That may never come

She realizesShe mustSet herself free

Find the strengthTo break the rusted lockOn the tower’s rotting door

And climb slowly downThe winding staircaseChoked with spider webs

She must step outInto the sunlightDancing liquid gold

She breathes in the sweet smellOf the gown of wildflowersThe earth has garbed itself in

She is freeNow and foreverTrapped no more

For she found the strengthTo stop waitingAnd wondering

She found herselfAnd realized somethingShe really knew all along

She needs no princeTo rescue herFrom the keep

She needn’t wait for himA day longerThan she already had

Why should a princeGet to save the dayWhen the princessCould save herself

~ Sam

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13 comments:

This photo updated a few days ago on my list and I couldn't get into it. I figured that it was for a future post :o). I wanted to see what it was, it intrigued me BIG TIME.

So, now that I've already been sitting here way too long (as far as my boys are concerned)...I have found that I can actually see it...and yes, I am still intrigued. This is such an exciting picture...but I mustn't write, right now. My boys are wildly arguing.

I don't care if I am a frog -- that's one heck of a long way to swim just to look for a princess who may kiss me and turn me back into a prince but is much more likely simply to scream and run the other way when I try to talk to her. Besides, being a frog's not all that bad what with being amphibious and having all the flies you can eat. ribbit

Once upon a time...In a land far way, stood a man...no...a boy yearning for manhood searching his way through himself and a foreign country. He sat for hours fixated on the Chateau de Chillon cemented into the shore of Lake Geneva. The boy having come from the Midwest United States sat awestruck at the beauty, age and character of history before his naive eyes. That image, that feeling of new awareness mapped out his life's journey...followed until this day.

Okay…this is obviously fictional and not about me or anyone in my family but I began writing and it flowed…here is my contribution.

~ From the pages of my journal

I once saw her. She was in a small boat just on the edge of shore. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, so I took out my binoculars to see more closely. She had a frantic look upon her face, this young girl; it almost caused me to be noticed but who was I to go help her? This poor state that I’m in.

As I watched through my specs, I noticed she had a long pole. She quickly threw it into the water and bobbed it up and down so quickly. I don’t know how she could have caught anything, if she was fishing but suddenly she pulled up this large sack. The anticipation overwhelmed me as I watched her hurry to open it up. The sack was moving, poking and bouncing. I saw her smile with delight as she opened it up and reached in. She pulled out a puppy. The sack tumbled over into the boat and out came three more puppies, all bouncing and licking at her face.

She turned, fiercely looking around, as if she was checking to see if anyone had been watching her. Maybe she sensed my presence.

I wondered what she was going to do with four puppies and how she’d known that they were in there. Then I saw him; a burly man with a scowl on his face. He was in the bushes. I wouldn’t have noticed him there, other than I saw the tree’s moving about and it caught my attention. I could see that he was angry and that he had no purpose to turn away from her rescue.

I realized that it was up to me. I had to be noticed, even with the chances of going back; I couldn’t allow myself to watch him attack her. She was young, sweet and precious. She obviously has a good heart and I, too, have always been such a fool for puppies.

Leaving my belongings behind me, I jumped into the water and swam as quickly as I could while keeping an eye on that man. I was thinking that he may have even been setting her up, reeling her in for his own purposes; this created a burning anger inside of me. My adrenaline was pumping so hard that I think I must have looked like a speed boat gliding through that water.

As I got closer, I saw him come stomping from the bushes toward her. She’d just reached shore with the puppies. I could hear him yelling, and she scurried quickly up the side hill with the heavy sack. He was too big to catch up to her, but she was too little and not strong enough to carry her self and the sack up that hill for long. I had to reach her. I was out of breathe by the time I reached shore.

My presence made the burly man take notice. He no longer was alone and must have thought twice about his attack. He quickly turned and ran for the boat, drifting away off out of my sight.

The little girl stopped and turned. I had hoped that all of the excitement would have been a lesson for all, without having been noticed but it didn’t happen that way. She saw me. I tried to hide my face from her but it didn’t matter, she recognized me right away. “Uncle!!!” she said. “Oh, my Uncle, where have you come from? How did you get here? I’ve missed you so…”

I’m writing this from my jail cell. Yes, I was caught. I neglected to say where I came from, why I was there and the history of my life for a reason. I didn’t want to turn out the “bad guy” in this story; for fear of what you’d think of me. Shortly after she saw me and we reminisced a little, her mother came running from the house looking for her. She allowed me in to stay the night. She - being my sister. She cleaned my clothing and fed me a good meal. Just after we finished eating, there was a knock at the door. It was the Police. Someone had been watching over them and saw the same man that I had seen. Unfortunately, they also saw me. The police took notice of me and knew immediately who I was. I had no choice but to return with them.

You see, years ago, I robbed a bank. They knew that it was me because there were witnesses. They never found the money though and I wouldn’t tell them where it was.

My sister needed a home. She needed a safe place to raise her little girl. No one knew then that she was pregnant, and at that time they wouldn’t have cared. They had no use for a woman with child, without a husband. The man she loved left her quickly when she told him. She was alone, with no money and barely of age. What could I do? I loved my sister, but I couldn’t make ends meet for myself. I had no family of my own to care for, no children; so I took the risk of making life better for her and, possibly, for myself. I wanted her to be the mother that I knew she could be, without fear of what people might think.

My best friend took the money. He always loved my sister. I knew that he’d take care of her, I trusted him. He did take care of her. He purchased this land, set the beautiful house on it and she’s lived in this safe place for years. The little girl is my niece. They’ve both been faithful visiting me here, which is why she knew me so well.

I had never had the opportunity to see her home, to see them living in the beauty and in the comfort of this place. I had to see. That day that I watched from afar, that could have been the day to my freedom. I was preparing to go to another country, to change my name but I had to see her home first. I wanted to catch a glimpse of their happiness, hoping to see them outside.

I had been on probation. Yes, I took a chance out of my boundaries in going there but just think what might have happened in that moment if I hadn’t been there. I suppose it was a foolish thought of my own anyway, to think that I should run when I only had so little time left and I was already out. Now, here I sit in this cell room once again. I’ve made a commitment that has changed my life forever, but that I will share with you another day. Now, my hand is aching from writing all of this.

(Some day, my dear sweet niece, you will understand better why I am unable to be there and watch you grow. I love you.)

Once upon a time there stood a castle at the edge of a deep lake. Inside the castle lived a princess.

The princess was superficially charming and shallow, with a love of seafoam green dresses trimmed with the fur of foxes. She was also obsessed with coaxing the castle songbirds to warble sweetly as she passed. (Usually they just made a hacking spitting sound and scattered their birdseed at her feet. This she tried not to take personally, because although she was shallow, she did realize they were just birds after all and not necessarily the brightest creatures on the earth.)

The princess dreamed of balls partis and a handsome man to sweep her off her feet. But therein lay her the problem. The princess's feet were actually that of an ostrich, and the glass slippers brought to her by her swains never quite fit. This caused the princess great distress and she contempleted chopping off her feet (as all princesses do at some point or other). One of her suitors genuinely felt that the ostrich feet didn't matter and was serious in his pursuit of her. The princess felt that although this ONE man was exceptionally handsome and rich and kind, she really needed the glass slippers to fit and resented that he didn't want have a pair for her to try on (it was his principle, you see, that he would love her for who she was, not what she thought she had to be).

So she sent him away from the castle, and started looking for a knife. She couldn't keep her other suitors waiting...

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved her grandmother very much. She lived alone with her in an an old run-down church at the edge of a lovely large lily pond.The rains came almost daily and they would often walk around the sparkling water, watching the raindrops fall into the water and create little rings that would expand and expand until they finally met with something that broke their perfect shape. It was such a peaceful part of the day for her. Her grandmother would usually pick up one of the flowers along the way and fold it within her hair, telling her how beautiful she was and how much she looked like her mother.Her parents had died of the influenza when she was very young. All that she now held from them was an old photograph, a tattered book of poetry, and her grandmother's memory.Many times she would bring the book of poetry along on their walks together and her grandmother would choose one to read. Then they would discuss it and her grandmother would recall how much her father or mother had loved that piece.As the little girl grew up, she felt that she knew her parents, although her physical memory of them had almost completely vanished.The time came when her grandmother was too weak to continue their walks around the pond, so she would go alone, sit among the forest trees, and read the poems she loved so very much.Until her grandmother passed away as well. It was a stormy day, almost too stormy to read one of her poems. But she did.She went around to her favorite spot opposite their home, and with tears running softly down her cheeks and mixing with the raindrops, she felt at one with the water as she read:

"There is not in the wide world a valley so sweetAs that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

"Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the sceneHer purest of crystal and brightest of green;'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,Oh! no, -- it was something more exquisite still.

"'Twas that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear,And who felt how the best charms of nature improve,When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

"Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I restIn thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace."-"The Meeting of Waters" by Thomas Moore

Once upon a time there was a Prince, locked in his island estate. He wasn't kept there by a witch or some cruel twist of fate. He'd chosen his home when his mother fell ill and courtier's wispered, "The country's all gone to hell."Ten years or more while they hid face, the king and elder princes stood in their place. But assassins and war and time took their toll, till there was none but the Prince on the knoll. He knew nothing of ruling but she didn't care, a visiting princess who'd pull him from there. The country was in need and the crown fit no other. She dressed as a boy, a man or a brother. She rowed herself across the wide lake, a trail of lillies left in her wake. She slipped up to his room in the tower. The land she could see held grace and power. He did not shy from his duties, he knew what had to be done. And started his journey by the great rising sun.

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